OES watershed

Today Mr. Arensberg came to the classroom to talk to us about the OES watershed and the water resources of the greater Portland area. We learned some new facts about the watershed including how the Clean Act was started and why it is important. We learned about water pollution and what makes water ways healthy.

Weekly Update: September 25

Coming Up

October 2: Walk for Fun Assembly and Homecoming

October 6: Geometry unit Assessment

Dear Parents, 

I enjoyed seeing all of you at BTSN; Please feel free to get in touch with me if you have concerns or questions about your children, the curriculum, or our plans for the year.

Curriculum

Reading

In our Reading Workshop we focused on reading “intensely,” noticing that good readers notice details, knowing that details matter and are included in a text for good reasons and purposes. I have almost finished the reading assessments for everyone in the classroom. We continue to work on organizing our reading notebooks so our notebooks are partners in our reading adventures. We continue to read The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo and use the book to share how to stop and make meaningful notes as well as the meaning that can be gained from a text by making reading a social act.

Writing

Students have worked to plan and develop a realistic character and are starting to plot out a draft of a realistic fiction story. When planning the story plot, they are challenged to also think about their character's motivations, challenges and emotions during each scene in the plot draft. This next week students will start to work on developing drafts of these stories. 

Spelling/Word Study

We are reviewing syllables or word chunks as a spelling strategy. It is important for students to recognize syllables in words. When they are able to say one syllable at a time, spelling becomes much easier. We will be reviewing this important strategy with geography words connected with our global explorations.

Math

We are almost done with our unit on Geometry. Students have learned how to draw and identify lines and angles, and classify shapes by properties of their lines and angles. This upcoming week, students will be reviewing skills and vocabulary with the math project. The project is to be done with a team and in class. 

Our unit assessment will be in October. Students will be asked to

• Draw points, lines, line segments, rays, angles (right, acute, obtuse), and perpendicular and parallel lines. Identify these in two-dimensional figures.
• Classify two-dimensional figures based on the presence or absence of parallel or perpendicular lines, or the presence or absence of angles of a specified size. 
• Recognize right triangles as a category, and identify right triangles.
• Identify line-symmetric figures and draw lines of symmetry. 

Inquiry: Global Connections 

Last week, students brainstormed countries they felt connected to either due to visits or family connections. We started to review the world map and reviewed the difference between a continent, country, state, and city. 

* * * *Process for Change of Contact InformationIf you have a new email address, phone number or other important contact information, the best way to let the school know about important changes is for you to make those changes in the OES Parent Portal (parent.oes.edu). The portal not only gives families access to student information, it is also designed to help parents inform the school quickly and directly when changes need to be made to family information. That includes emergency contacts you wish to add or edit. You can access this feature by simply logging into the portal, going to the Family page and choosing the item you wish to edit from the list of links on the left. If you experience account password problems or other technical issues the tech office will provide assistance.

Homework: Official running homework document

On this Homework googledoc, which will also be in your child's drive files, has the running assignments for each week.
Click on the word "Homework" above to open the running assignment googledoc.

Ben Hatke

Ben Hatke, (writer, artist, author of graphic novels)  was quite a hit with the children.  He highlighted three things that helped him write his books. He explained that:

• our brains are wired to make connections between things; the “magic” of comics is reading between the panels because readers connect two very different images and connect their meaning without even thinking about it.
• the power of gesture plays a large part because we read each other’s body language all the time and often know what someone is thinking even without any communication.
• drawing from life is a big part in graphic novels; he said that there was the art side and the drawing side; the art side includes drawing and getting one’s thoughts across; the drawing side he compared to a flower that draws water and nutrients and creates a beautiful blossom; likewise a good storyteller draws from all the experiences and adventures of their own lives to produce a beautiful story. 

He shared examples of using ideas from his life experiences for his books. Ben Hatke’s presentation tied in well with our class discussions on how stories hide in everyday occurrences because students were gathering ideas for our small moment stories.  

Homework: Wednesday September 23, 2015

Spend 15-20 minutes working on a Character Sketch

A character sketch is a quick rendering of a character, and writing a sketch is about asking and answering questions. In order to write a character sketch, you must ask yourself questions about your character. Only you, as the author, can answer these questions.

Students are asked to spend a few minutes tonight doing a character sketch. They have possible questions to answer and character traits to help this with this assignment. We have been working on many of these ideas in class. 

This should not be difficult. 

HOWEVER.....

If your child is struggling, encourage them to just write ideas. Remind them there is no right or wrong answers. Remind them to use themselves as inspiration...how would they use themselves as a character model.  

If it is simply not working, invite them to write me a letter explaining why they couldn't do this assignment.

Thanks!

Back to School Night

Here is a link to the slideshow I shared on Monday. I also shared the class schedule, high frequency words and OES online database links and passwords. The schedule is attached. Please contact me at thompsonc@oes.edu if you want hard copies of any of these documents including the slides.

Weekly Update; September 18

Coming Up

Sept. 21:    BTSN from 6:00-7:30 p.m.

Sept. 24:    Student Pictures
Sept. 24:    Ben Hatke – Author visit 1:00-2:00

Oct 2:     LS Walk for Fun Assembly 8:10 – 8:40 a.m.

Dear Parents,

We enjoyed the first full week with your children who are eager, enthusiastic and full of energy. It is good to see them treat each other with kindness and respect; they have been doing an amazing job of working together. We have been practicing various classroom routines in starting to work together as a community. The children enjoyed the first technology, art, library, and science classes.

Homework

Reading: Students should read for at least 20 minutes, take notes showing deeper thinking about the text and fill out the Status of the Class update.

Math: We will introduce MobyMax as an online tool for differentiating math homework. We may also provide some home study links and math boxes throughout the week for home practice.

We will talk more about homework practices, organization, and my philosophy on homework on Monday at BTSN.  Please do let me know if your child has difficulty with homework, you and your child should not struggle or be frustrated by the amount or content.

BTSN

Back-to-School Night on Monday, September 21, from 6:00-7:30.

Many thanks to Brandi Ettinger for being our room parent; she will provide information on the parent volunteer program at BTSN. The list of opportunities is pretty long and I do appreciate your help in this team effort.

I will go over our curriculum for the year and provide you with a paper copy of the information I present.

Reading

I have been working on reading assessments and will continue through next week. We are emphasizing comprehension strategies and slowing down to read intensely while students are reading their books of choice. I am reading Tiger, Rising by Kate DiCamillo out loud. We are practicing as a group the habits of and intense reader who stops to think deeply about the characters as well as the choices the author makes when writing.

Writing

Writing follows a workshop model; students will start planning a realistic fiction story based on a small moment story. Students are focusing on developing believable characters and a clear story arc through planning.

Word Study

We are beginning our spelling/word study program by reviewing and assessing students knowledge of word patterns and mastery of frequently used words.

Math

We will continue to work through Unit 1 and focus on classifying quadrangles based on properties. We will also identify properties of polygons and distinguish between convex and concave polygons as we explore geometric definitions and classification and practice using a compass.

Social Studies

As part of our wider social studies curriculum we'll begin to talk about our place in the world. We'll consider the places we are connected to: countries and states we have visited, places where family and friends live, and our cultural heritage. We'll use this activity to begin our exploration of world geography. 

Technology

Students have received their laptop computers and new passwords and we hope to resolve glitches next week and start using our googledocs.

Attendance

Please send any attendance changes to lsattend@oes.edu. This way if one of the teachers or Miriam is off campus someone in the office will get the message.

Have a wonderful week!

Back to School Picnic

A special thanks to all the parents and kids who were able to make it to the picnic tonight! It is always nice to connect in a relaxed and fun even t such as this!

Balancing as a team

We took a walk through the woods behind the chapel today. We explored the high ropes course and found this giant balance challenge. As a class, we needed to work together to hold the plank level. The class did it!

Then I, Ms. Chris, stood on one end and again we worked together to make it level.  Success!

Sharing Writing

Today, students shared some plans and scene drafts as they take what they know about writing narratives and small moments stories and start to use their imaginations to push into the genre of Realistic Fiction.

We are trying not to jump into drafting stories rather staying with the process of planning and exploring different ideas, characters, and settings.

Weekly Update: September 11

Important Dates

Sept. 17:    Picture Day Forms due 9/16

Sept. 18:    Back to School Picnic 5:00-7:00 p.m. Student can wear white.

Sept. 21:    BTSN from 6:00-7:30 p.m.

Sept. 24:    Ben Hatke – Author visit 1:00-2:00 Hatke book orders due 9/14

Sept. 25:    LS Walk for Fun Assembly 8:10 – 8:40 a.m.

 

This Week:

Our class spent this week getting acquainted with each other and putting important routines in place.  We discussed class jobs, and lunch and recess rules, and started conversations on class agreements. All three fourth grade classes played outside games with Tracy Arensberg and Ari Sternberg on Friday.

Next Week:

Reading

Talk about what our Reading Workshop looks like and give students an overview of the different components to our reading time. We will begin formal and informal reading assessments with students, in addition to our regularly scheduled reading instruction. We will discuss your child’s reading life with you at our fall conference.

Writing

Talk about what our Writing Workshop looks like and give students an overview of the different components to our writing time. We will continue to brainstorm and start to draft some small moment and realistic fiction stories.

Math

Begin Unit One in Everyday Math.  We will also introduce problem-solving strategies to students. Our LS Math Specialist, Tracy Arensberg will offer enrichment opportunities throughout the year.

Sandi Lillevik, an Upper School math teacher, has graciously agreed to organize a group of high school students to work on various enrichment activities with our students this year. We did this last year and were impressed by the dedication and expertise of the older kids. The fourth graders love being part of this special activity and learned a lot from it. The Upper School students will come once a week for 30 minutes and work with small groups of children. This year, we will rotate on a four-week schedule. Ms. Sathyaraj's class will start, Ms. Thompson will follow, and Ms. Taylor will go third.

Social Studies

Work on Class Agreements and building community.

Homework

Student will have some reading homework. We will go over homework expectations at Back to School Night.

Picture Day

This is a uniform day and we will take class photos as well as several different individual poses on Thursday. The Picture Pre-order forms should be turned in by Wednesday.

Attendance

Please send any attendance changes to lsattend@oes.edu. This way if one of the teachers or Miriam is off campus someone in the office will get the message. Teachers are not allowed to report plan changes, please email lsattend@oes.edu directly.

Conference Schedule

Getting Acquainted Conference Schedule

	Monday, September 14	Tuesday, September 15	Wednesday, September 16
3:15	Andrea -Anna	Amy -Owen	Sangeeta -Ria
3:30		Svetlana -Gregory	Funda -Kaan
3:45		Jon -Porter
4:00	Carrie -Willa	Fonda & Nathan -Lahna
4:45			Andrew & Figen -Renee
5:00		Leah -Sophia	Jeff & Victorya -Ari
Other Friday, September 18 @ 1:50 Pei-Li (Alex) Thursday, September 24 @ 3:00 Brandi (Julian)